


And They Come Unstuck

by lydiastiles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison is dead, Angst, Depressed Lydia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Lydia and Kira are friends, Lydia-centric, POV Lydia Martin, post 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:59:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2704730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiastiles/pseuds/lydiastiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time passes, life goes on. Until it crumbles around you again, and you need someone to lean on.</p>
<p>Lydia learns to rebuild herself without Allison, and a certain brown-eyed boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And They Come Unstuck

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from stydia-fanfiction: Lydia doesn't quite know about Malia's sleepovers at the Stilinski residence, so when she stumbles there upset in the middle of the night, she ends up seeing the two together and a lot of feelings hit.

“The heart was made to be broken.” — Oscar Wilde.

* * *

The pain, so raw and piercing, clutching at her chest in an instant of terror and absolute dread, is better than this.

The seat in the Sheriff’s office beneath her is made of a scratchy material, and it is rubbing against her bare thighs in a way that is extremely uncomfortable.

Her mind is blank, and that nice Deputy — Parrish, with the clear green eyes — is asking questions she doesn’t want to answer. She knows what she’s supposed to say, and she can hear Isaac choking over the words — “It all happened so fast” — and she wants to scream, to yell. The unfairness of it all is breaking her — Allison, so strong, so bright, so _alive…_

It’s her turn to answer, and she looks up at the Deputy, seeing nothing in his eyes but genuine concern. Another day, she might have been thankful for his compassion, but today it just makes everything worse.

* * *

Black. She looks over her shoulder and sees black. Rows and rows of people — some she knows, some she doesn’t. All grieving for _her,_ and they don’t even know how she died.

She swallows, and turns back to face the front, her pale hands in fists on her lap. Scott squeezes her shoulder and she closes her eyes and lets the tears spill from them.

Allison would’ve hated it.

* * *

She ponders over why flowers, of all things, are used as gifts to the dead. To show life? To show that the crumbling remains of the people we love can still carry on their souls through the regrowth of a new living thing? To bring some vibrancy into the dullness that is loss?

But she knows the truth. The truth is that life is fleeting — the evidence of that is right in front of her eyes — and replacing it doesn't change the fact that it will go. The truth is that even the new life dies, only to be replaced and replaced and replaced until the old is forgotten, buried under the many layers of the new. The truth is vibrancy burns bright and fast, quickly fading as it appears. The truth is, Allison is gone. No amount of flowers or consoling words is going to cushion that fact from her.

She knows, and it is ripping her apart, and she can't do anything about it. Except endure it.

* * *

Stiles shrinks away, rage and guilt and sorrow buried inside him, making him unreachable. Scott follows him, kissing her on the cheek after the funeral and whispering, “I’m sorry. He needs me.”

She nods her head, completely understanding.

She doesn’t realise until she is left standing on her own that she needs them, too.

* * *

The brush, once so soft against her cheek, now feels scratchy and harsh.

The powder, once the answer to the blemishes scattered across her pale face, now makes her feel clammier than she already is.

She is tired.

She is heavy.

* * *

She walks past _her_ locker. It is overflowing with flowers, messages from people who didn’t to go to the funeral, but close enough to be saddened by her death.

Kira’s brown eyes find hers, filled with sadness and apprehension.

She’s not Allison, but she needs all the friends she can get. So she smiles. The kitsune smiles back.

* * *

They are fragile. They will break at any moment.

And then they are not. Suddenly, they let love in.

She notices. The fingers entangled. The fresh smiles, carefree and whole.

What she doesn’t expect is for it to be Malia.

* * *

She’s happy for him. Of course she is; with her whole heart, she is happy for him.

Malia asks for her math notes.

(They’re a code. Why the hell did I write in code?)

Kira gushes about Scott’s brown eyes to her at break-time.

(They are nice, but not as nice as a clear amber.)

* * *

The deputy finds her at a house with dead bodies.

She’s glad she’s started dressing better again.

* * *

She falls back into that hole, slipping easily into the darkness. The code, the deadpool, the key. A weekend holiday at the Lakehouse, listening to the voices whispering something she can’t quite hear.

If it was her choice, she’d shut them off completely. But lives depend on it, and it’s not a choice, it’s a given.

* * *

As the tears stream down her face, she’s thinking of Allison again.

It didn’t start because of her. It started because she couldn’t do her math homework.

 

 

(I can _always_ do math.)

(I’m so hopeless. I can’t do anything anymore.)

(I can’t even help my friends.)

(I couldn’t help Meredith.)

(I can’t help anyone.)

(If Allison was here, everything would be so much easier.)

(I wish Allison wasn’t dead.)

(Even _Aiden_ died.)

(And Jackson left, too. Everyone leaves, in the end.)

 

 

Her heart is folding in on itself again. Her mum’s out of town. She needs someone, now. Someone who’s never left.

* * *

Her car is revved up, the radio blaring.

 

 

_And she’s been living on the highest shelf,_

_Ooooooh, oooh,_

_And they come unstuck…_

 

 

She drives, remembering the route like the back of her hand.

 

 

_I just gotta, I just gotta know,_

_I can’t have it, I can’t have it_

_Any other way…_

 

 

She pulls up in the driveway, noticing the absence of the Sheriff’s car.

A blue Jeep is glinting white in the moonlight. Her breaths are shaky. Her palms are dry. Her cheeks are wet.

The night is still.

* * *

She knocks on the door loudly, once, twice, three times.

“Come in!” Stiles’s voice yells, and she tries to stop crying long enough to open the door and wait for him. She needs his strength more than anything right now.

She opens the door and hears him thumping down the stairs. The house is warm and she takes a shuddering breath as she steps inside, clicking the door shut behind her.

He appears in front of her, dressed in trackies and a plain, loose t-shirt. His gaze wanders over her in astonishment and she realises she must look a mess, and she pushes the hair out of her eyes and puts a less sorrowful expression on her face.

“Lydia?” He says softly, moving towards her. “What happened?”

She’s trying so hard to hold it together, and then she comes down the stairs, dressed equally as casually as Stiles and it all falls into pieces.

_Stiles isn’t yours he has someone get out get out this was stupid_ —

A tear slides down her face.

“What happened?” Malia asks bluntly, though Lydia knows she’s concerned. Stiles turns to her.

“I’ll meet you upstairs after, OK?” Malia nods, and goes back to his room, no doubt listening in anyway, although Lydia hopes that she has enough decency to not.

She feels less sure about being here now. “I’ll go — I didn’t know I was disturbing anything,” she says hoarsely, quietly.

Stiles reaches her, frowning, at a loss. “Lydia — you know you can always come around. For anything.”

She bites her lip and more tears spill out. She feels pathetic. Stiles takes her hand as she lowers her gaze. His long fingers threaded through hers anchors her.

“ _…A kind of emotional tether…_ ”

More tears. Stiles doesn’t say anything, he just stands there with her hand in his. It’s as if he’s feeding her strength like Scott takes away pain.

She looks up at him, and his eyes are already on her. She suddenly feels wrong. _Malia._ Her urge to say thank you is replaced with the desire to leave — what did she think would happen? He would invite her to sleep over with him? Him and Malia?

A part of her did — and now that part is filled with shame.

“I should go now,” she whispers.

He looks at their hands and swallows reluctantly. “OK.”

She takes a breath and unthreads their fingers. Now that they are apart, the intimacy of what they shared burns in her throat.

She is the type to break hearts with a single glance, but never to…

She can’t find the words in her head to describe what just happened. She just knows that it is wrong and shouldn’t have happened, especially with Malia in the room over.

She’s already at the door when Stiles says, “You… you should know that I miss — hanging out with you as much as we used to.” He rubs the back of his neck, searching for the right words. “I mean —”

“I know, Stiles,” she says, because she does, because she’s thought it too. But she’s already made up her mind: she’s going to stay away from him, from his relationship, because she is not _that_ kind of person, and be damned if _Stiles Stilinski_ of all people make her.

He nods, relieved, and she feels her heart sink a little as she leaves the warm house, gets back into her car, drives home, and finishes her math homework with ease.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :) x


End file.
